Federal funding cuts are crushing California's small mountain towns

[Cattledog]

Michelle Beutler cleared 67 trees off a U.S. Forest Service road in two days. It was the spring of 2023, after a record-breaking winter in the Stanislaus National Forest in California’s Sierra Nevada. Beutler, 59, worked alone with a chain saw to remove every fallen tree on a 10-mile stretch of road between the town of Long Barn in Tuolumne County and the popular Hull Creek Campground. She single-handedly finished the work so the road could open in time for Memorial Day.

As a recreation technician based out of the Summit Ranger Station in the Stanislaus National Forest, Beutler’s job was to clean toilets, pick up trash and maintain recreation sites and campgrounds up and down Sonora Pass. She’d typically drive her Forest Service truck 100 miles a day. She sprayed pit toilets with a fire hose. She wiped away graffiti and removed thousands of pounds of house trash, old furniture and useless stuff that people dumped in the forest. She extinguished hundreds of abandoned and illegal campfires. She assisted law enforcement during emergency accidents, helping officers navigate a swath of rugged forest land that she grew up on and knows intimately.

But last week, Beutler lost her job. The Trump administration has fired thousands of people like Beutler who work for the Forest Service, hollowing out an agency that manages 193 million acres of land across the country — roughly equivalent to the size of Texas. California’s 18 national forests alone add up to 20 million acres.

Beutler was one of two recreation technicians in the Summit Ranger District. They both lost their jobs this week.
“There’s nobody left in our position to go out and do the work that we did,” Beutler said, noting that trash will accumulate and toilets in campgrounds will fester.

“Don’t go camping this summer, I wouldn’t advise it,” she added.

https://www.sfgate.com/california/article/calif-mountain-towns-in-trouble-after-federal-cuts-20177786.php

[Submariner]

1. This will lead to more remote wilderness access

resulting in illegal logging, poaching in and out of hunting/fishing seasons, illegal traps and trapping, trashing of trails/campsites, and more illegal grows where toxic chems are added to soils.

But if this is what it takes to get the rent and food prices down, so be it.

[stopdiggin]

3. Wait. What .. !?

I didn't quite catch that last line .. ? Was that sarcasm .. ?

[2naSalit]

4. Probably not.

I would give the same advice.

I can only imagine the damage that will be done by idiots and vandals of all types. There will be nobody to tidy up after each offense, it probably won't be safe as there will be a bunch of preppers moving in real quick. It will get bad in a hurry.

[stopdiggin]

6. which has nothing to do with my questioning the final line

in the post indicated.
You agree that this is a necessary counter to price increases ... ?? Wow!

[2naSalit]

7. Because...

I misplaced my comment and I thought you were referring to the last line in the OP...

“Don’t go camping this summer, I wouldn’t advise it,” she added.

[stopdiggin]

8. no problem. I've booted a few myself!

- - - - - - - - - - - -

[2naSalit]

10. All's good...

I have a B-Ball game to watch.

NCAA Div II (MSU-B at MMU - Fairbanks)

[Johonny]

5. It will almost certainly result in more fires

[Maru Kitteh]

2. The forest service operates a beautiful small campground 5 miles from my house

on the lake we live on. We like to go there on short weekends even though it’s just don the road on our lake. It’s a lovely spot with a great bech for kids, very soft and gradual. I expect it will stay closed, probably be sold or be farmed out to a for-profit recreation company. They tend to hire psychos and derelicts for campround “hosts.” We had one in another campground that got all kinds of creepy and awkward when he found out I was a nurse, and then wanted to know if we had booze with us and told us he would “drop by later for a drink.” Yeah, we told him no thank you.

[Mountainguy]

9. California should annex the parks into State lands.

Just claim them as abandoned properties.